Working group on gender education

LAHORE, July 1: A Working Group on Gender in Education (WGGE) consisting of eight leading educational institutions and NGOs in Punjab has been formed to support gender sensitive education policy formulation, implementation and research-based analysis as well as ensure gender parity and equality in education.

The WGGE member institutions and NGOs are: Lahore University of Management Sciences, Government College University, Lahore College for Women’s University, Kinnaird College, University of Education, Punjab University’s Department of Gender Studies and SAHE and ITA.

In the forming of the working group, the UN agencies and the Pakistani government also participated in a two-day intensive consultative session organised by the Unicef, which concluded here on Tuesday.

According to a news release issued here on Tuesday, the WGGE is a part of the initiative under Gender in Education Policy Support Project (GEPSP), a tri-partite agreement between the ministry of education, Unicef and the DFID.

The consultative session participants shared their experiences and expertise in research on gender in education and formulated the terms of reference. The session concluded with two immediate action points: mapping and inventory of research institutions and documenting gender sensitisation programmes for policy makers and academic institutions.

The news release said the findings of these actions would be presented in a national-level dialogue scheduled in November. It said the WGGE would ultimately have a resource network established as a part of overall GEPSP to increase the capacity for knowledge management and to ensure effective gender mainstreaming in education policy formulation, implementation, information generation and sharing with provincial and district education system.
Source: Dawn
Date:7/2/2008